FlamingText

Complete Coincidence Theatre: Pt 1

  Many people who know me are fond of referring to me as a conspiracy theorist. I don't know who’s paying them to say those things about me, but whoever it is needs to be on notice that A: It just isn't so, and B:They'll never stop the truth from coming out.

  Conspiracy theorists have gotten a bad name in the last ten years or so (coincidence? You be the judge.) In the post X-files world, the phrase has become more or less synonymous with UFO enthusiasts and other eccentrics. Do you think that conspiracy theories are confined to believers in wild, unsubstantiated claims of alien abduction, paranormal activity, secret human cloning experiments, freemasonry and the teachings of L. Ron Hubbard? Think again, bucko.

Conspiracy
n. pl. con·spir·a·cies
1. An agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act.
2. A group of conspirators.
3. Law. An agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime or accomplish a legal purpose through illegal action.

  Do you believe that Watergate really happened? How about the Iran-Contra Affair? The Lewinsky Scandal?Do you believe that tobacco companies knew of the dangers of tobacco for fifty years and engaged in a concerted public relations strategy to conceal said dangers from the public? Do you believe that the laws governing the trajectories of objects in motion are consistent throughout known space?

  If you answered “yes” to any of those questions, then congratulations. You , my friend, are a bona fide conspiracy theorist. If, on the other hand, you think that widespread reporting of these and other stories relating to the supposed efforts of powerful parties to engage in unethical and/or illegal practices and to conceal said practices from the public is nothing more than a bunch of hype promoted by the mainstream media to advance their own liberal agenda, then you are also a conspiracy theorist. Here’s your tinfoil hat, you moonbat.

  Now if I were anywhere near as paranoid as people say I am when I’m not around, I might take all this as evidence that conspiracy theorists are everywhere, all around us, even in the highest positions of power and influence, plotting and scheming all the time to make us their hapless pawns. But of course that would be crazy talk. And that is not what I’m about. I’m all about the sane talk.

  Like all good-hearted, right-thinking Americans who know what’s good for them, I am certain that there are no such thing as conspiracies. The problem with conspiracy theorists is that they believe that things are connected somehow, whereas I know that they are not. Nothing is connected to anything.

  It is in this spirit that I bring you a little feature I like to call Complete Coincidence Theatre, in which I present two stories that might appear to be related to certain crazy people viewing them through their special X-Ray Conspira-vision Crazy Glasses, but in fact have nothing whatsoever to do with each other. Won’t you join me?

Tomorrow:Complete Coincidence Theatre, Episode 1!

Every Cynic is just a Fractured Idealist

R.I.P. to an icon.

Everything's Fine

  I've heard it said that the human need for a place to call home is so strong that soldiers engaged in trench warfare will actually resist moving out of a familiar foxhole. It's not that this foxhole is any nicer than another one, the thought process goes, it's just that this is my foxhole.

  Which is not to say that this is a foxhole. It's a perfectly nice place, especially since I painted it last month and put up the new curtains. Once the kitchen's finished this house will be perfect! There's just so much natural light. And when the kitchen's done you'll be able to sit in the breakfast nook and look out the picture window -- look, you can see all the way out to the trestle from here! There is not a thing wrong with this place that a little bit of creativity and elbow grease can't fix. But for some reason, certain people just can't seem to get past the location. Or the "location issue", as James called it.

   Now, there are those who may tell you that it isn't a good idea to build a house right across the train tracks. And I respect their right to that point of view, I just don't happen to share it. The simple fact is that in all the months I've been living here, not one train has come through. I'm pretty sure that this track isn't connected to anything. If it were, I'd know, right? I mean it would be pretty obvious. So why keep bringing it up?

   My supposed "friend" James told me it only takes once having a train run roughshod through the middle of your home to pretty much ruin your whole day, but I'm not speaking to James anymore because he is a pessimist. He's always been a glass-half-empty type and right now I just don't have the patience for that. The way I see it, if no trains have come through till now then that's a pretty good reason to believe that none ever will come through in the future. Even so, it's very upsetting to have to listen to my so-called friends' negativity. You know what shortens people's lives and ruins their health? Stress, that's what. And you know what causes stress? Negative thinking. It's been proven! So why would people who claim to be my closest friends put so much stress on me with all their doom-and-gloom talk? Are they trying to shorten my life? Why don't they just poison my food or cut my brake lines if that's what they're after! I tell you, with friends like these....

  I'm sure that's the reason I've been feeling anxious lately. That last time talking to James, before I told him that he wasn't welcome in my home anymore, left me in such a state that I still don't think I've fully recovered. I keep waking up in the middle of the night, imagining I hear train whistles in the distance. And when I think about all the hurtful things that he and my other "friends" have said to me, sometimes I get so mad that I start to shake. To actually, physically shake! That's how mad it makes me! And once or twice, when that's happened, I've caught myself wondering if it really was me shaking and not the floorboards underneath my feet -- did I just feel them, I don't know, vibrate a little? Which of course is crazy. But this is what stress does to a person. Like, just then. I was looking at the place setting on the table, and it seemed to me that maybe the fork was a little out of whack. Like not quite square, you know? And I find myself wondering, was I just in a hurry when I set the table, or did I set it like I always do and somehow it... shifted. A little. Almost imperceptibly.

  Anyway, I refuse to move now on principle. I come from a proud family. My father used to always say that our family crest should be a stick shift with no reverse because we don't back down. We're from frontier stock.

Still, sometimes I can't help but wonder --wait, did you hear that?

Pernicious Influence

The Just Say No crowd was right. Marijuana is a gateway drug, and the stronger, more addictive drugs it leads to are primarily Television and Video Games.

On the decline of public space

I wonder if the almost complete absence of public restroom facilities downtown has something to do with why every alley or doorway big enough for a person to stand in smells like urine.

It hurts to be a Hero

  Ever read a news story that, at first glance, seems to contradict everything you believe to be true, but then when you read on further actually just confirms it? I had one of those experiences yesterday when I came across this headline: "Raccoon saves student's life."

  It just seemed so out-of-character to me. I was picturing a raccoon bravely rushing into a burning building and dragging out the unconscious body of a six-year-old girl. Or finding some poor traveller trapped in their minivan rolled over in a ditch, and keeping them awake until help arrived so that they wouldn't pass out and die from their head trauma.

But no. Reading further down, I found out that this raccoon was practicing a different type of heroism altogether:

  20-year-old Cornell student Lisa Nelson was walking down the rain-slickened Cascadilla Gorge trail that runs between Ithaca's Collegetown neighborhood and the Cornell campus when she slipped and fell. Despite plummeting 75 feet into a rocky gorge, she sustained only minor injuries because her landing was softened by landing on top of a "soft, plump raccoon."

I am quoting from the original UPI story now:
Police say that they believe the raccoon saved the co-ed's life.

Police Capt. David Barnes said rescue workers found the student and the hapless raccoon laying side by side at the bottom of the gorge.

"She was on the bottom and there was an injured raccoon next to her," he said."

  So this is the kind of heroism we're talking about. The raccoon broke her fall. The story ends by stating that the raccoon was recovering at a local animal shelter, but a follow-up indicates that, after appearing to make a promising recovery, his condition worsened and he died after six months from "complications." Which is a common problem suffered by those who have had a coed dropped onto them from a height of 75 feet.

  Far from invalidating my deeply-held beliefs about these matters, this story merely serves to confirm what I already know:

1. Getting landed on does not constitute extraordinary bravery, unless it's intentional. If you are minding your own business and you accidentally save someone's life, don't expect a Congressional Medal of Honor.

2. Raccoons are not our friends. Oh sure, they may look cute with their little burglar masks and their little hands. Don't be fooled. They are clearly humanity's rivals and they know this. Those cute little hands can grasp objects, open latches, lids and locks and I'm pretty sure that, given the opportunity, they can work a stick shift. Which means that the only thing stopping them from joyriding in stolen cars is the fact that their little feet can't quite reach the pedals.

What was that raccoon doing in that ravine anyway? I mean, before the girl landed on him? I'll tell you what he was doing. He was doing what all raccoons are doing all the time. He was plotting the overthrow of human civilization.

No raccoon has ever received a Congressional Medal of Honor.

"It's people!"

Well, it was an unmarked white van, so I guess I could see how one might mistake it for a police van. It was parked two blocks West of Broadway and Denny --you know, that intersection where all the junkies and street kids hang out? Across the white canvas of the windowless side panel, someone had taken a sharpie and written
"Stop arresting my friends!"

The dot over the "i" in "friends" was a little circle.

Underneath, in another script, this response:
"Stop writing graffiti on a tofu delivery van."
Followed by the driver's signature and the name of the company.

Which of course sends me off on one of my little tangents:

Tangent #3
"I heard about Scotty. That's fucked up, yo."

"I saw the whole thing going down from across the street. Parking lot of the Jack in the Box."

"Cops got him, huh? Did anybody find out what they popped him for? Was it possession with intent or some bullshit disturbing the peace--"

"Wasn't cops."

"What? What do you mean? I heard it was cops."

"It was the tofu guys."

"No way!"

"I'm afraid so."

"Man! What's up with those guys? I mean, what's their deal?"

"I wish I knew, my friend. I wish I knew."